Veneer sanding jig

Necessity is the mother of invention. After resawing the side blanks, I needed a method to thickness sand thin strips of wood for a Nordic tine. Using my planer was disasterous when tearout caused the entire piece to explode.

I built this removable MDF fence for my Rigid oscillating sander. It attaches to the table with the two black knobs. They thread into t-nut in a block of wood on the underside of the table. The holes in the MDF are slotted to allow for adjustment.

I drilled and tapped two socket head set screws to use as levelers to fine adjust the fence square with the sander. The table is corrugated, so to provide a flat surface for the leveling screws, I filled the entire table top with auto body filler and sanded it smooth. The leveling set screws and the filled table are both visible in the third photo.

To use the jig, I place the resawn strip between the fence and the belt sander. Slide the fence until it is snug, but not tight to the wood and belt sander. You should be able to pull the strip of wood out. Turn the sander on and feed the wood in from the left side, using your fingers to keep the wood tight to the fence. Re-adjust the fence and repeat until the desired thickness is reached.

I plan on using this for making veneers for inlay work, so I don’t need anything too wide. Eventually, I’ll build one of the wide panel drum sanders that show up on LJ every so often.

Good question, MaFe! Always have one hand on the wood at all times! There is enough friction between the work piece and the MDF that you don’t have to fight against it too much. Originally, I wanted to put countertop laminate on the fence, but I don’t want to make it any more slippery.